CONSTITUTIONAL BUT WRONG?

After Election Day, there are going to be patches of
people who are represented by officeholders that none of
them ever voted for.

It sounds strange, hardly fit for the State That
Started A Nation.

Still, it will happen in all three counties in a sort
of reverse twist on the old British "rotten boroughs."
They were little shriveled pockets that kept sending
members to Parliament whether people lived there or not.
Here in Delaware, people get officeholders whether they
live there or not.

The British got rid of the rotten boroughs in the
19th Century. In Delaware in the 21st Century, the
situation is on hold.

The blame for it goes to redistricting. The defense
for it goes to the state constitution.

Redistricting comes along every 10 years after the
national census. The districts for the state General
Assembly, the New Castle County Council, the Kent County
Levy Court and the Sussex County Council are jiggered to
rebalance them for population in keeping with the
principle of one-person-one-vote.

The 2012 election is the first for the new districts.
In the state legislature, all of its members will be on
the ballot, so no problem there. In the counties, about
half of them will be, and the rest will hold over, even
if their new districts take in people they never
represented before.

The legislature had made provisions. The
representatives, as always, are being elected for
two-year terms. The senators typically have staggered,
four-year terms, but the ones who were elected in 2010
got two-year terms. The senators will run for either
two-year terms or four-year terms on Election Day to
reset the staggered schedule. This happens after every
redistricting.

The counties, however, are rolling merrily along with
four-year terms for all. They have staggered terms, so
people elected in 2010 are not up until 2014, new
district or no new district.

It does not sound right to John Atkins, the
Democratic state representative from Millsboro.

"How do you legally represent a district you weren't
elected in? I think you should elect your County Council
members, not inherit them. Every council member should
have to run," Atkins said.

The state constitution has something to say about
that. It protects officeholders from having their terms
slashed. Redistricting be damned.

"There are constitutional ways someone can be removed
from office, and that is not one of them," said Dave
Swayze, a Wilmington lawyer who has spent considerable
time in the corridors of government. "You cannot
dispossess someone from office without following with
exactitude the mandates of the constitution, and it
usually involves high crimes and misdemeanors."

Not that these unelected anomalies never occur,
anyway. Nobody ever voted for Gerald Ford for president.
No polling place ever had a ballot with Ted Kaufman as
the U.S. senator for Delaware.

Atkins is unwilling to give in. "It doesn't mean you
can't change the law," he said.

Even if it has to wait until the next round of
redistricting for 2022.